Read Online Finders Keepers by Fern Michaels - Free Book Online

wanted. I always did what you wanted because you taught me to be obedient and respectful. My life is your life. You drove me to this point, Mother. I have to take charge of my life.”
    Barnes blinked when he remembered how Thea had stretched out her arms, trying to grapple and paw Jessie, who nimbly stepped away. “Don’t touch me!” she’d screamed. “I hate it when you strangle me with your arms.” Thea had collapsed into a heap on the drawing-room floor. Jessie had stared at her, then walked away. It was over. She would start to remember soon, he was sure of it. He was so sure that he was actually considering taking Thea to some South American country where the FBI would never find them.
    Barnes frowned as he watched Jessie carry boxes from the playhouse to her car parked at the back of the house. He moved quickly then, running down the steps to the library window, where he would have a better view of his daughter’s activities.
    He’d known for a long time that Jessie kept things in the playhouse she didn’t want him or Thea to see. He hadn’t minded, and he kept quiet because Thea never suspected. He knew for a fact that she went through Jessie’s room every single day. What she hoped to find would always be a mystery. Perhaps some clue that Jessie was starting to remember.
    Barnes waited until he heard Jessie creep up the steps before he poured himself a tumbler of bourbon and lit a new cigar. When he finished both he walked over to the wall safe and opened it. Thea’s heirloom jewelry, the religious medal he’d never sent the Larsons even though he’d told Thea he had, and bundles and bundles of cash. Two days ago he’d replenished the currency when he mailed off a box of money to Jessie’s parents from Chicago. He lined up the bundles of money on his desk the moment he closed the safe. He needed to write a note. He needed to say something to the young woman he’d come to love with all his heart. He knew in his heart, in his mind, in his gut, that Jessie was never going to return to the Charleston house. He thought of his wife and what it was going to do to her. So much money. He poured another tumbler of bourbon and fired up a fresh cigar. He needed other papers from the built-in file cabinet. His hands were unsteady when he shuffled through the bank folders until he found the ones that pertained to Jessie’s trust fund.
    Barnes drained the glass of bourbon before he clamped his teeth around the fat cigar. He penned off a short note to include in the box. He was an expert at wrapping tidy boxes. He nestled all the cash from the safe, the small jeweler’s box with the medal, and the papers inside the box. He wrapped it securely with paper and twine before he used a thick black marker to write Jessie’s name on the outside. Where the return address would normally go he wrote DAD.
    He rummaged in his desk drawer for the spare key to Jessie’s car. He used up more minutes telling himself he was doing the right thing before he summoned up all his guts to walk outside. He felt like a sneak when he rearranged Jessie’s boxes in her car. He was careful to put his own box next to the accordion-pleated carton so that she would see it when she unpacked her car.
    Back in the house Barnes stomped his way to the filing cabinet. His face twisted into a grimace when he recalled words from a movie he’d seen. When you want to hide something, hide it in the open, which was exactly what he’d done.
    The folder was thick and full of clippings from the AP wire service. Words like complicity, reciprocity, kidnapping and accomplice ricocheted around inside his head. He had been a willing participant. His hands were clumsy as he shuffled the clippings in the folder. He read them all, but then he’d read them before on nights like this when his guilt threatened to consume him. He wondered if the day would ever come when he would show the